Anderson, Kevin J & Beason, Doug Assemblers of Infinity

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story after only a day of coverup. It was difficult to downplay the
abandonment and destruction of an entire space station -- but this was the
first the newsnet reps had seen of the actual comparison views.
Celeste stepped up beside him and leaned over the microphone amplifier.
"When you look at these alien destructive devices, some of you may recall the
old-time videogame of Pac Man." She waited, but no one seemed to know what she
was talking about. Pritchard barely remembered it himself, and he had spent a
great deal of time studying computer simulations.
Celeste continued, as if confident that everyone recognized her
analogy; that way, the newsnet people felt inadequately informed, instead of
Celeste having to admit a mistake. "Like Pac-Man, the alien assemblers zip
through their medium -- whether it be lunar regolith or human tissue --
gobbling up the raw materials they need to self-replicate, molecule by
molecule, building copies of themselves or constructing whatever structure
they were programmed to build."
She showed a montage of images from the Daedalus crater. "Given free
rein, these alien nanomachines will wipe out everything in their path. You
have seen accounts of army ants on the march in South American rain forests,
disturbed by the waves of construction going on down there." She smiled
sardonically. "Well, think of that devastation covering this entire planet. We
have to make sure the alien infestation never ever reaches Earth. That is why
we took such extreme countermeasures once they were discovered on the
Collins."
Pritchard summoned another series of images that made him
uncomfortable. Celeste had insisted that he pull the heart-strings, and this
would certainly do it. But the tactic did not make him feel very admirable.
The face of a smiling man filled the screen, enlarged from an old
personnel record that was never meant to be used for any high-profile purpose.
"This man was Trevor Waite. You probably recognize him from your first
coverage of the Daedalus discovery. His colleagues called him 'Can't Wait'
because he was always in a hurry to get his work done."
He advanced to the next frame. "Another familiar face. This man is
Siegfried Lasserman. He remained in the hopper as the contact and MainOps. His
service record is on file. It is truly exemplary."
Finally, he showed a young black woman who was smiling a great deal
more than the first two men. "And this is Becky Snow. She had been on the Moon
for only a few weeks. She was accompanying these other two out to Farside as
part of her qualification requirements. The three of them had no warning, no
indication that they were heading out for anything more than just a simple
repair mission."
Pritchard fixed his gaze on the newsnet corps in the room, as if
demanding their silence and their respect. "Instead, they discovered the alien
construction on Daedalus crater." He paused for a beat. "They died for it. The
alien nanomachines got them."
Out in the audience, Pritchard could sense an uneasiness bordering on
panic. He was certain that many -- if not most -- of their reports would be
heavily slanted, thereby priming the world for drastic measures.
"We are not taking this threat lightly," Pritchard said, gripping the
podium hard. "We have some very serious preventive measures that we are even
now putting into place. Perhaps they will seem like desperate actions at
first, but these are desperate times. One slip, and our entire planet could
end up a seething mass of self-replicating machines."
He maintained his silence for several seconds longer than it felt
comfortable. "Listen to me. This is our proposal to keep control of the
situation. This is what we must do."
Beside him, Celeste nodded her encouragement again.
Simon Pritchard had just made everyone on the planet feel naked and
vulnerable -- and he was about to sell them clothes.
--------
*CHAPTER 22*
ANTARCTICA
On the day after the storm, Antarctica lay clear, with a star-filled
night sky planetariums would envy. A subdued white of moonlit snow covered
everything.
The Mars rover tore across the pristine landscape, chewing tracks into
the snow, moving on a bee-line to its destination.
Inside the vehicle, Gunther Mosby kept shifting his gaze from the
terrain to the pilot's seat, where Bingham Grace drove with fixed
concentration, probably trying to mask hopelessness.
On the rover's instrument panel, Gunther saw the tracking grid showing
their progress toward Kent Woodward's bleating distress beacon. The signal
glitched a few times, then returned. The lost rover's battery would be running
down, leached by the intense cold.
Kent had finally taken one too many chances. He had defied direct [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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